


Idle hands are the Devil's downfall

by shinykari (meinterrupted)



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (though Matt doesn't figure that out), Cuddling, Drunken cuddling, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, M/M, Matt Murdock's Martyr Complex, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Underage Drinking, background Foggy/Marci, background Matt/Elektra, background appearance of Marci Stahl, just let yourself be happy you little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 13:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8164094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meinterrupted/pseuds/shinykari
Summary: Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece.

When it comes to Foggy, Matt has always had trouble keeping his hands to himself.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vera_invenire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vera_invenire/gifts).



> This is for vera-invenire, who gave me this prompt for the "idle hands" square of [my Daredevil Bingo card](http://shinykari.tumblr.com/post/147998785689/praise-kink-thank-you-jesus-and-also-google-docs). Title is, rather obviously, from the phrase "Idle hands are the devil's playground," which to my surprise does not actually appear in most translations of the Bible. Who knew?
> 
> Thanks to Molly (rescuemepotts) and Arabwel (screaming-towards-apotheosis) for looking this over. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> (See end notes for info about the non-consensual voyeurism tag, if you are concerned.)

_Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece._  
_Proverbs 16:47 (The Living Bible translation)_

✝✝✝

It starts in college. Foggy is always _there_ , a warm presence that keeps the darkness away, and Matt is drawn to him like a moth to a flame. It's a cliché, one that would make his freshman composition professor sigh and purse her lips, but Matt can't find a better description for the intense _need_ he has to be near Foggy. It's not sexual (at least, not entirely--Matt is a healthy 18-year-old with the libido to match, after all), but even when they're just sitting alone in their dorm room, he finds himself leaning into Foggy's space.

If he were anyone else, Matt could ignore it, pretend this was just how friends acted toward one another, and move on. Foggy certainly doesn't seem to mind, letting Matt curl against him when they watch a movie on his laptop, or playfully kicking him under the table when they study. But he's a Murdock, and the devil inside them breaks everything they touch. Foggy doesn't deserve that.

So he learns to keep his hands to himself, his spine straight instead of arching toward Foggy when they sit close. He lets Foggy guide him still, his pleasure at that touch only partially marred by guilt over his deception. He drags his desk chair close instead of plopping on Foggy's bed to watch a movie. When they study, he always chooses the seat diagonal from Foggy, to make sure there's as much space between them as possible. He doesn't even miss it. 

(That's a lie.)

When he drinks, though, all of that hard-won resolve flies out the window. Foggy's even warmer when he's had a few, the blood rushing to the surface of his skin and giving him what Matt's sure is an attractive blush. Matt's body moves like liquid, unconsciously forming itself to the spaces Foggy leaves behind, into all the nooks and crannies sober Matt doesn't allow himself to touch. He lets his head rest on Foggy's shoulder, his hip to bump against Foggy's, his hands to wander down from the bend of Foggy's arm to his waist. Foggy just laughs, butting his head against Matt's and letting Matt's hands have free reign over his skin.

The mornings after are always awkward, made worse by the hangover that always accompanies them. More often than not, Matt wakes up in Foggy's bed, the two of them tangled together in some configuration of too many arms and legs. Foggy always mumbles sleepily when Matt extracts himself and stumbles to the bathroom, senses dulled by the pounding headache and mouth dry and tasting vaguely of beer. But more than that, he's cold, body yearning for the place he just left, and he swears to himself that this time is the last time.

(It never is. Matt can no more deny himself Foggy's touch than he can block out the sounds of the city around him.)

By the time he returns to their shared dorm room, Foggy is always sitting up, looking at Matt as he flips onto his own bed. He asks, voice soft and carefully neutral, as if he's talking to a frightened animal, "You okay, dude?"

"Yeah," Matt says, shooting him a smile even he knows isn't very reassuring. "Had to pee."

"Okay," Foggy says, obviously not convinced. He shakes his head and lays back down, moving the air around him just enough that Matt gets a fresh whiff of his scent, warm and musky under a layer of booze. "Well I'm gonna pass back out because if I stand up, all that liquor is going to rush back to my head. And trust me, that will not be fun for either of us."

Matt chuckles and curls himself around his pillow, wishing it was Foggy's body.

They keep it up through undergrad and into law school, Matt trying desperately not to touch Foggy, taking his frustrations out on punching bags and the occasional bar fight, until they fall into bed after a few too many. They eventually move into a two-bedroom apartment, which changes the logistics a little, forcing them to sprawl over one another on their couch rather than in bed. Even though Matt has a few girlfriends and more than a few hook-ups, none of them ever inspire that same desperate need to touch and be touched that Foggy does.

Until Elektra.

Those months slip by in a blur of expensive scotch, incredible sex, petty crime, and more than a little pain and blood--both theirs and other people's. He barely sees Foggy at all, too busy skipping classes to spend more time with Elektra and sleeping over at her penthouse six nights out of seven.

It comes to a head one day, on one of Matt's infrequent stops at their shared apartment for clean clothes. He's halfway out the door when Foggy grabs his arm, pulling him to a stop. Matt knows three ways to get out of his hold, but instead he stills, body going rigid at the touch of Foggy's hand, so different from the leashed violence that permeates even Elektra's gentlest touch. He feels his face heat, and wonders if Foggy can see his blush. "Jesus, Matty, you haven't been to class in weeks! You missed your midterms entirely! What is up with you?"

"It's not a big deal, Foggy," he says, the lie falling from his mouth too easily.

Foggy shakes his head, the ends of his hair just brushing his shoulders--he'd cut it recently, and Matt hadn't been around enough to notice. "It's is, dude. I'm worried about you."

His hand is still warm and heavy on Matt's arm, and that, more than his words, ratchets up Matt's guilt. He wants to _stay_ , to let himself lean on Foggy, to watch a movie with his voice narrating the action, to let the scent of microwave popcorn overwhelm the odor of the city for a few hours. But he can't have that, especially not now.

"I'm fine, Fog," he says, carefully extracting his arm from Foggy's grip. "Really."

He leaves Foggy standing alone in the entryway of the apartment. Elektra is waiting for him.

It's more than Matt deserves when, a week after Elektra leaves him alone in a mansion with a murdered mobster, Foggy physically drags him out of bed and pushes him into the bathroom, complaining loudly that he's starting to stink up the place. Matt wants to fight him off, to curl back up under his sheets and wallow in his pain, but under the joke, he can hear Foggy's fear and worry. Instead of arguing, he strips mechanically and climbs into the shower. 

He hears the skip in Foggy's heartbeat when he catches sight of his scabbed-over knuckles and the bruises on Matt's bare skin, but he doesn't comment. Instead, Foggy sits on the toilet and babbles, telling him about his sister's latest romantic fiasco, his mother's continuing feud with their upstairs neighbors, Larry's breakdown after Marci eviscerated him in moot court--little inane stories to fill the silence. Matt can't focus on the words, not yet, but the cadence of Foggy's voice keeps him in the present, lets him wash away some of the grime that had built up over the weeks and months under Elektra's spell. 

(Though he clings to the lie that he was her less-than-willing pawn, Matt still wakes in the middle of the night, Sweeney's death gasp echoing through his head.)

Things go back to normal after that, or as close as they can, though it's never quite the same. With Foggy's and Marci's help he doesn't fail out of law school, and he picks up the tab when the three of them go for celebratory post-finals drinks as a thank you. His fingers itch to reach across the table and cover Foggy's hands with his own, to pull him close and wrap himself in Foggy's warmth to block out the worst of the nightmares. Instead, he lays in his bed and listens to the slick sounds and muffled moans of Marci and Foggy fucking through the too-thin walls of their apartment. He's too drunk to fight the urge to touch himself, and comes with Foggy's name on his lips.

Matt sleeps better than he has in weeks.

A few years later, he puts on the mask for the first time. It's soon after they leave Landman & Zack, and for a single, shining, glorious moment, everything in the world is _right_. He lets the Devil out and pays the man back in blood for every hurt he inflicted on his daughter, for every night she lived in fear of someone who should have kept her safe. The system failed her, so Matt gives her the retribution she deserves.

(He wonders what his father would think.)

In the beginning, he only goes out once or twice a week, putting himself bodily between the citizens of Hell's Kitchen and the men and women who prey on them. By the time they open Nelson & Murdock, he's spending more nights in the mask than in his bed, using his fists to mete out justice as well as extract information. The criminals he's chasing are getting bigger, smarter, more organized, but no matter how many of them he takes down and leaves for the cops, he can never quite reach the _rightness_ of that first night. (He doesn't like to dwell on why that is.)

Then Foggy finds him dying on the floor, and his secrets pump out with each beat of his heart. Foggy's pulse races, his skin hot with anger and betrayal as he asks (begs) Matt to tell him the truth.

Matt does. He tells the truth about the accident, about his father, about Stick. He paints a picture of a world on fire, and prays silently for Foggy to understand. He longs to reach out, to take comfort in the warmth of Foggy's body, but he doesn't need his sight to see that would be unwelcome right now.

"Are you telling me that since I've known you, any time I wasn't telling the truth, you knew?" He swears he can hear Foggy's heart breaking, and the sour odor of humiliation makes his gut churn. "And what, you just played along?"

Matt swallows, his throat tight. He wants to lie, to let them both take comfort in the familiar, but Foggy deserves more than that. Foggy deserves everything, and Matt would flay himself bloody to give him just one moment of peace. "Basically."

Foggy's tears smell like Matt's failure.

They don't talk about it. Matt's wounds heal, and Foggy stops smelling like salt and anger and shame whenever they're in a room alone together. They make up, mourn Ben, take down Fisk and his stable of dirty cops, and clear the Devil's name.

Nelson & Murdock staggers on, until the first fracture in their world appears in the heat of summer. Frank Castle and Elektra are two dueling levers, and the weight of Matt's and Foggy's secrets slowly use them to force that tiny crack into a chasm too wide to bridge. Fisk's threat is the final push Matt needs to do the right thing, and he lets Foggy go.

Their last conversation cuts deeper than Nobu's blades, for all that it is polite and mature. Matt does want to convince Foggy to stay, desperately, to give them another chance, but that's not fair to Foggy. He deserves better than Matt; he always has, it just took a decade before Matt could convince himself to give Foggy up. Matt has been expecting this moment from the first day he met Foggy, and he thought he was prepared to be alone again.

He's not.

His life is in shambles. Elektra is in the ground and Stick is in the wind, and though Karen and Foggy are within walking distance, they might as well be in San Francisco. Matt is alone, just like he always knew he would be, in the end. It's a good thing, he thinks; now there is no one for his enemies to hurt but him.

The publication of Reyes' and the DA office's widespread corruption has the court overturning convictions right and left, and Matt spends every night in the mask, dealing with the resulting surge of petty criminal activity. The Hand has gone silent, but Matt isn't stupid enough to think they're truly gone, while Madame Gao is quietly reestablishing her own business in the wake of the Blacksmith's demise. Fisk is still behind bars, his crimes too well documented and publicized to throw out, but it doesn't seem to matter; if anything, his reach has expanded since his arrest. His agents are taking over the Kitchen block by block, using force when persuasion doesn't work.

The tension builds.

Matt continues to take a few cases, mostly people he meets while wearing the mask. It's one of those--an illegal eviction case--that brings him back in contact with Foggy. He's at the courthouse, getting increasingly angry with the clerk who's being a prick about getting Matt the records he needs in a format he can read. "If you're not able," he bites out, "call your ADA liaison. He should be able to help you figure it out."

"I'm sorry sir," the man says, his heartbeat saying he's anything but. "Your request was only submitted five days ago and that's not enough time--"

"Actually, it is," Foggy says, cheerful steel in his voice. Too distracted by his argument and the general bustle of the courthouse, Matt didn't hear him come in, and a mixture of shock and the gut-punch of being near Foggy again has stolen his voice. "Considering I can see a stack of Braille records on your desk, it looks like you had more than enough time to have them printed."

Foggy's wearing a subtle, expensive cologne that doesn't irritate Matt's nose, and when he shifts, Matt doesn't hear the slide of polyester suiting, but instead the gentle rasp of wool. He's kept his hair short, the ends just brushing his shirt collar, and Matt can smell a hint of the expensive citrusy conditioner Foggy rarely splurged on at Nelson & Murdock.

Matt wants to wrap himself around Foggy and never let him go.

"Thanks, Fog," Matt murmurs as the embarrassed clerk slams a stack of papers on the counter and stalks off.

"Anytime, Matt," he replies. He waits while Matt reads the cover page and, satisfied it's the correct file, puts in his briefcase. "Actually," Foggy says, and there's a tentativeness in his voice that Matt has rarely heard, and never directed at him, "I was on my way out, to grab a coffee. You look like you could use one."

Matt grips his cane so hard he's sure his knuckles must be white, his brain screaming at him to say no, to run away, to keep them both safe by putting distance between them. But his heart, his stupid, treacherous heart, jumps at this olive branch. "I'd like that," he says.

He can feel Foggy's answering smile, and before he consciously means to, he's reaching for Foggy's arm. He goes still when he realizes what he's doing, aware that it may not be welcomed, but Foggy meets him halfway, placing Matt's hand in the crook of his elbow.

When it comes to Foggy, Matt has always had trouble keeping his hands to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> The non-consensual voyeurism is for a (very) short scene where Matt listens to Foggy and Marci having sex without either of them knowing it. It's about a sentence long and I don't consider it overly creepy, but ymmv.
> 
> I do not believe that Elektra was abusive toward Matt, and I'm afraid I didn't do a great job of making that clear within this story, since the style didn't really lend itself to that sort of exposition. The bruises Matt's sporting in this story are from either A) consensual sexy times (Elektra loved to smack him around, and Matt very much enjoyed it as well) or B) consensual sparring between two very highly-trained fighters. Even if they were being careful not to hurt one another (which, this being Matt & Elektra, they were not), it would be impossible to come out of that sort of play fight completely unscathed.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [shinykari](http://shinykari.tumblr.com), crying about Foggy Nelson and Star Wars. Join me!


End file.
